FINGER AMPUTATION
Have you ever been so overcome with grief that you just need to cut off a piece of your finger? Hopefully not. But for the people of Dani Tribe, finger cutting is a typical mourning practice.
Located in a remote area of Papua, New Guinea, the Dani are deeply attached to their customs --- even the ones that encourage detachment of body parts. When someone dies, the tribe will cut off a portion of every woman's finger who was close to the deceased. The more loss a woman experiences, the more she loses of herself, literally.
Before being amputated, the fingers are tied with a string for thirty minutes to numb them. Once amputated, the new fingertips are burned to create new scar tissue. Though now banned by the government, this custom, one of the world's most bizarre cultural practices, is still occasionally practiced by the tribe from time to time. It is a ritual performed to satisfy the ancestral ghosts and has been going on for many generations.
Though mostly applicable to older women, the practice sometimes goes down all the way to baby females who have the tips of their fingers bitten off in a similar ritual.
